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southcarolinamom-re:culinary arts course

Pata

By Pata,
in K-8 Curriculum Board

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Pata

Pata

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Could you share more about the culinary arts course you designed using the two Alton Brown books? The one you mentioned on the "curricula I'm most excited about" thread. It very much peaked my interest and I didn't want the question to get buried in the thread. Thanks :)!

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southcarolinamom

southcarolinamom

Posted
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Oops, sorry ladies, I took a day off from reading the threads!

 

I'm Just Here for the FOOD (food+ heat = cooking)

I'm Just Here for More Food (food x mixing + heat = baking)

 

I bought two good used copies of the above named Alton Brown Books from Amazon, and divided the contents into a semester's worth of reading and making recipes. ** You can click on "search inside this book" on Amazon.com for a generous sampling of his pages... a nice table of contents, plus 10 or so other pages.

 

If you like Alton Brown's TV shows on the Food TV channel, his books are just like them -- funny, easy to understand, with a slant toward scientific explanations for why foods do what they do when baked or cooked.

 

Some days I will have my son read some pages, some days he will be making certain recipes (either from the cookbooks, or my own recipes) based on the topic.

 

I like Alton Brown's writing style for my science-minded 16 yo son, but will also use it for my daughter in later high school.

 

 

Hope this helps!

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Julie in CA

Julie in CA

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...Just thought I'd chip in anyway. ;)

Alton Brown is wonderful and would make an excellent home ec. type cooking course. I just thought I'd mention though, that if you're looking for a high school or college-prep type version of culinary arts, you might want to check this out:

(Don't pass out about the price, there are lots of older editions that I'm sure would work just fine.)

http://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Textbook-Culinary-Fundamentals-Dictionary/dp/0136038794/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282252151&sr=8-5

 

The book is excellent, and the study guide is useful, imo.

Another thing to consider adding to the course to add rigor would be a foodservice certification course. Also useful would be a field trip to a local butcher (if you can find one that will allow it), to observe dressing/cutting meat. Apprenticing with a caterer would be another idea.

 

If the student is planning a career in the culinary arts, all of this would be excellent prep. For someone not planning that career path, it would be overkill, but I thought I'd throw out the ideas, just in case. :001_smile:

 

p.s. There's also a book and study guide "On Baking" that's equally good, but obviously more specialized.

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southcarolinamom

southcarolinamom

Posted
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...Just thought I'd chip in anyway. ;)

Alton Brown is wonderful and would make an excellent home ec. type cooking course. I just thought I'd mention though, that if you're looking for a high school or college-prep type version of culinary arts, you might want to check this out:

(Don't pass out about the price, there are lots of older editions that I'm sure would work just fine.)

http://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Textbook-Culinary-Fundamentals-Dictionary/dp/0136038794/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282252151&sr=8-5

 

The book is excellent, and the study guide is useful, imo.

Another thing to consider adding to the course to add rigor would be a foodservice certification course. Also useful would be a field trip to a local butcher (if you can find one that will allow it), to observe dressing/cutting meat. Apprenticing with a caterer would be another idea.

 

If the student is planning a career in the culinary arts, all of this would be excellent prep. For someone not planning that career path, it would be overkill, but I thought I'd throw out the ideas, just in case. :001_smile:

 

p.s. There's also a book and study guide "On Baking" that's equally good, but obviously more specialized.

 

Wow, that's some book! I wish I could take a peek inside the cover. :)

 

I was also planning on letting my son take a 4 hour Saturday class at our local community college's culinary arts dept - he could pick from: asian cooking, sauces, baking, salads, etc. I believe it's $50 for a 4 hour class.

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cottonmama

cottonmama

Posted
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Julie, thanks for chipping in! While we were waiting for southcarolinamom's answer, I got to brainstorming about how to round out or follow up an Alton Brown course. Your ideas are great.

 

The main thing that came to my mind, which I shared on the other thread, was a serious bread making book like "Bread Alone." I own this book and find that it is a good technical, if not scientific, guide to bread making. (By technical, I mean it talks about ideal temperatures and ratios and such, but it is not scientific because it does not get into what chemical reactions take place when you do all the right technical things.)

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